<p>
</p>
<p>Sorry for pursuing a college education. I feel so ashamed for attending USC only because I’m poor! My apologies!</p>
<p>binks09 - it doesn’t matter a bit to me if you think USC is throwing their money away on me 'cause USC seems to think I am worth it. Thanks for your valuable input.</p>
<p>Wow, Binks, kind of a cynical observation. Even though the FA situation for my son is devastating, I certainly would not wish for him to get more aid by denying students with lower incomes. That’s not the answer. Hopefully a college education will help you to see the broader issues with the system used to determine how we fund education in this country.</p>
<p>just for an update, we looked and my brother did receive Cal Grant last year so it isn’t an income thing, since i’m pretty sure my parents filed both of our fafsa reports at the same time we have no idea what happened</p>
<p>it had been in the news many times recently that Calgrants may be cut because of the Calif budget crisis.</p>
<p>but this is from LAST year, not this year. i didn’t receive the cal grant i believe i was supposed to receive last year.</p>
<p>I can’t believe you are only now discovering this about your Cal Grant. You best follow up with the school and Cal Grant immediately. You must have a lot of money lying around to “not notice” the lack of almost $10,000 ;-)</p>
<p>that is pretty snide, my parents and i assumed we’d get a check reimbursing us later, we weren’t sure if we were supposed to get it through the school or independently and since this was my first year we didn’t know whether or not it was supposed to show up on my financial aid report.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am NOT defending Binks, but people who responded that $8k of loans is a large burden for a poor family are missing the point. The loans are for the attendee, not the family. With a college education that loan amount is tolerable and should be repayable within 5 years of graduation without too much trouble.</p>
<p>Compare that to the situation of a solidly middle-class family earning $80-$100k. Zero finaid puts them in the hole for $250k, and often middle-class kids will graduate with significant loan burden ($50k+) because of a misguided desire to attend a specific university. The end result is that (a) the family has emptied out all bank accounts to fund the education of the child (b) the child graduates with a loan burden that will drive them under if anything unexpected happens.</p>
<p>Both graduates are independent adults past the age of majority, their family’s financial situation has little relevance to their loan burden, unless the implicit expectation is that the family continues to carry the loan burden. This seems to be what many universities are assuming.</p>
<p>The plight of the poor is significant and they deserve the help they get. However, the statement that in order to attend a private university you either have to be poor (<$50k annual income) or rich (>$200k annual income) is a correct one. Everyone in the middle simply gets squeezed out.</p>
<p>It did go down. 
My parents’ income went down by around 10K, my brother is attending a private university trying to get his masters so my parents are trying to cover that as well…(my brother himself is around 65K in loans -<em>-) My parents don’t make that much money in the first place and now its in a worse situation :/(below median income) USC lowered my aid by around 6-8K from last year… and tuition is higher. sigh. It was good til last year, so I’m wondering why it went down o</em>O!</p>
<p>I did ask for an appeal but lets see what happens. My father just also quit his job although his contract goes til January. hahaha good times we have no back up plans its going to be friggin awesome HAAHAHA. I think they’ll cover him for one more year though since his contract has 6 years of work + 1 rest year or something. I can’t work my workstudy job as much either because I have a senior thesis project that’ll eat up all my time + 2 majors + 1 minors + internship T_T sigh. I guess I should just apply for more outside scholarships.
I should’ve worked this summer but KJlkjsldf I was just dumb and had 2 health issues due to stress/mental/health problems so I was told to rest. And I was just tired since I had 10-9 schedule last year with work and everything.
I should go get a job now :/</p>
<p>Hi Furyshade,
I’m confused…you say you didn’t know where to expect the Cal Grant because this is your “first time” but you say above that your brother got a Cal Grant last year — so just saying it seems like you would have noticed the lack on your tuition bill and done something about it last year. Not trying to be snide…just seems like if it wasn’t there you would have noticed right away when you had to come up with an extra $10K.<br>
You say: *That is pretty snide, my parents and i assumed we’d get a check reimbursing us later, we weren’t sure if we were supposed to get it through the school or independently and since this was my first year we didn’t know whether or not it was supposed to show up on my financial aid report. *<br>
then above that you say:
*just for an update, we looked and my brother did receive Cal Grant last year so it isn’t an income thing, since i’m pretty sure my parents filed both of our fafsa reports at the same time we have no idea what happened *</p>
<p>well the fact that we filed everything made us trust that USC was going to send the money. we didn’t think about the possibility that they just didn’t register the cal grant. now that we realized that it is very likely that they have not sent us the money. i don’t know if every university deals with it the same way, my brother goes to a different school so we don’t know how the different financial aid departments work. for instance there was a research grant that was added to my financial aid for last year because it extended over the summer. for all we know USC adds the cal grant later than university grant, now we realize that isn’t true.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, furryshade, the Cal Grant does not come from USC, it comes from The California Student Aid Commission. If you feel you were under the income/asset limits and should have qualified for a Cal Grant, you need to check with them.</p>
<p>If you filed your FAFSA before March 2nd the year BEFORE you started college (March, 2008 if you just finished your freshman year) AND submitted your GPA verification to the California Student Aid Commission before March 2nd (most California high schools do this automatically), you would have been evaluated for (but not necessarily granted) a Cal Grant. You can check here: <a href=“CSAC - Student Landing Home”>CSAC - Student Landing Home;
<p>UPDATE!!!</p>
<p>So I check my email this morning and I have an email from USC financial aid appeal saying it was accepted and they have modified my FA package.</p>
<p>Went on oasis, and the award is stll the same, but oddly enough I got that email at 1:23 AM (idk if it was east coast time or west coast as I never changed my laptop back) so I’m presuming it hasn’t been updated yet, or I will give them a call later on to make sure.</p>
<p>Thanks for everyone’s support, apparently if you really did go through something since the first documents were submitted they will listen</p>
<p>Just to give everyone an idea of my situation (not that comparing or anything is really possible but I mean at least you can kind of guage where your chances are, heh, sounds like HS again -_-):</p>
<p>There was a 35% drop in total income as my stepfather went from IT work to being a temporary EMS for a private company, reducing his check from 60-70k a year to 25k, and my mom makes about 35k after taxes (ironic she was considering quitting before the layoff).</p>
<p>Because of that, we nearly risked foreclosure when the bubble burst, thankfully my parents did know a bit about what they were doing and get it refinanced and paid off, I submitted those documents as they said they look at the imputed value of the house as well and consider it, however with interest rates on the mortgage and whatnot I don’t believe it was as high as the CSS profile made it appear.</p>
<p>Finally I described in detail how my father no longer pays child support, etc etc. I don’t know if that had any real bearing as I told them that I still see him sometimes but receiving money for school would be really difficult.</p>
<p>Along with those documents USC has you print and fax I also sent a copy of the previous and modified mortgage, the updated W2s/1040s (this all started because my mom thought she updated it but it didn’t submit), Fafsa, and any little addition I thought would help. Now I guess I’ll wait to make certain I’m not getting played.</p>
<p>That’s great news, Hyakku! It’s nice to see a positive turn in this situation, so thanks for posting.</p>
<p>hyakku, that’s wonderful news for you and a huge relief!</p>
<p>On another note, I just checked USC epay to see if the total amount due for this semester is up. I still have no idea what housing and extra fees are going to amount to. I was a bit shocked to see a due amount of nearly $20k, which is tuition and some minor fees.
For those who have Trustee or Pres scholarships, do you have the same? Is it normal that the scholarship amounts are not yet credited?</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure scholarship info gets posted today or sometime around mid july IIRC.</p>
<p>So I just checked agan and they indeed gave me an additional $3,000 in grant money which greatly helps out. I also realized that since I’m not in new/north and don’t have the meal plan it won’t be as expensive as last year so I’m trying to figure that out now too. I believe with the additional aid and the reduction in room and board I think this will be alot more manageable now, great way to start the day :).</p>
<p>I’m happy for you hyakku. Still, it must have been a lot of pressure on you to deal with this unease for the last couple of months.</p>
<p>Do you know where we can find out what out what the housing is going to cost, specifically Cardinal Gardens? I’ve misplaced the website address. Not having a meal plan will help out here too, though D will have to do some good budgeting.</p>
<p>hyakku,
The same thing happened to me a couple weeks back. I got an identical e-mail, also at an obscure time (a Saturday at about 2am). They ended up giving me an additional 2k in grants. I was a little disappointed, but, like you, will be helped greatly by the extra help.</p>
<p>Sequoia here you go:</p>
<p>[Housing</a> Options - Buildings - Cardinal Gardens](<a href=“http://housing.usc.edu/HousingOptions/Buildings.aspx?bID=CAR]Housing”>http://housing.usc.edu/HousingOptions/Buildings.aspx?bID=CAR)</p>
<p>I was slightly disappointed grey, but the 3k with the extremely lower cost of living compared to last year really only increased my tuition by 2 or 3 thousand I suppose, which is an excellent value compared to the additional 10-14k I was expecting.</p>